I am new to this site, and I would like clarification on 3abn(?)
Hi mrst53.
Danny and Linda Shelton and perhaps others co-founded 3ABN. Tommy is Danny's brother.
After Danny dumped Linda, accusing her of spiritual adultery, people started asking questions and a lot of not-so-well-known allegations began to surface. After Danny remarried a much younger woman less than two years later, more people began asking questions.
It was in pursuing some of these questions that a friend and I discovered on August 14, 2006, that Pastor Glenn Dryden of Dunn Loring had sent a letter to Walt Thompson in 2003 when he was pastor of the Ezra Church of God in Illinois. That letter informed Walt Thompson, the 3ABN Board chairman, that Tommy had molested six boys.
Dryden got a reply from a 3ABN attorney threatening legal action, "even if the actions did occur." At that point we realized that 3ABN and Danny Shelton had some pretty serious issues, not to mention Tommy.
Danny had the gall to replace Linda, the alleged spiritual adulteress, with Tommy, the alleged pedophile, and allow Tommy to play the piano for Kid's Time. In other words, Danny knew full well the risk of Tommy working around kids, and allowed it anyway. The school principal on 3ABN's campus knew nothing about Tommy, I was told, and neither did the pastor of 3ABN's church.
The blame for a cover up falls on Danny's shoulders. It sounds reasonable to me to consider Pastor Wood to be a duped victim, though of a different sort.
It would have been much better if many of those involved had taken the allegations more seriously. Just because Tommy had never been charged or convicted did not mean that he was innocent and could be trusted around children and youth, and even adults.
Tommy was in trouble in Illinois by 1985, and was let go from 3ABN around 1991. He became pastor at Dunn Loring about 1995, and was back at 3ABN about 2001.